Table of Contents

Welcome From The Chief Editor

Digitizing Your COVID-19 Vax Card

Inkscape Tutorial: Creating A Rainbow

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner: Breakfast Sausage Pies

Short Topix: Internet Explorer Officially DIES June 15, 2022 ... Sorta

Game Zone: Mother Russia Bleeds - Better Than SOR 4?

Good Words, Good Deeds, Good News

Windows 10: An OS With A Privacy Guide 1,243 Pages Long

nnn: The Terminal Based File Manager You Never Knew You Needed

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus: Chicken Milanese With Fresh Tomato Sauce

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Screenshot Showcase

Welcome From The Chief Editor

Recently, sam2fish started a post in the PCLinuxOS forum, asking members to post about their favorite pizza joint. There are probably as many ideas about what makes the ideal or best pizza as there are pizza lovers.

Of course, I replied about our (mine and my wife's) favorite pizza shop in the Kansas City area. Leo's Pizza (Leo died several years ago, but the place has been kept going by his family) makes what some call St. Louis style pizza. This pizza has a thin, crispy cracker-style crust (no large rim of flavorless, bready crust around the edge), ingredients all the way to the edge, and uses a special, custom blend of Provel cheese (a processed cheese mix of white cheddar, provolone and swiss cheese) made especially for Leo's.

With young kids in the house, we do pizzas quite a bit. It's a meal that the kids look forward to. My son LOVES pepperoni pizza. My daughter prefers cheese pizza. My wife and I gravitate more towards more "fancy" toppings, like mushrooms, black olives, goat cheese, fennel sausage, onions, green peppers, spinach, etc. You know ... the things you can almost never get kids to eat.

Of course, there's multiple styles of pizza. Chicago has deep dish pizza pies, with a bready crust and PILED with ingredients on the inside, and topped with delicious cheese. Uno's Pizza, Pizzeria Due and Edwardo's Pizza (in Munster, IN, a town where I used to work for a while) are great examples of this style of pizza. Then there's the New York style pizza that's large, floppy, and (to me anyways) seems to be sparsely populated with toppings.

Everyone seems to have a favorite style. And, among those favorite styles, everyone seems to have a favorite pizza maker. Even further, everyone seems to have favorite toppings.

I have to be honest. We like them all. We often order from a budget pizza restaurant (like Little Caesars), or from the bake-at-home takeout fare from Papa Murphy's Pizza (both national chains). We'll order from local pizza restaurants, such as Leo's. But, we're also just as likely to make our own at home. Pizzas are easy to make at home, too.

We've made deep dish pizza pies. We've made "traditional" style pizzas. But lately, we prefer to make very thin, cracker-style crust pizzas. We'd prefer to fill up on the tasty toppings instead of all of that bread. Making the thin crust pizzas couldn't possibly be easier.

At the risk of stealing YouCanToo's "thunder," here's how we make them. Preheat your oven to 450° F (232° C), and place your flat pizza pan in the oven to also preheat. On a large cutting board, build your pizza.

For the crust, we use various sizes of flour tortillas. My sauce is tomato paste, seasoned with dried Italian seasoning (to save time and effort, we buy dried italian seasoning), garlic powder, onion powder, and a touch of sugar. Just season to your preferred taste. Spread a thin layer of the sauce on the tortilla. Then, layer the rest of your toppings. The pizza pictured above has Italian sausage, mushrooms, black olives, and goat cheese, made atop a 10 inch (25.4cm) flour tortilla. Then, top it with your mozzarella cheese. We like to "season" our pizza cheese with some additional dried Italian seasoning. We feel like it helps provide extra flavor, and provides a bit more color.

Now, it's time to bake your pizza. Open the oven door, and carefully slide your pizza from the large cutting board onto the preheated pizza pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, your crust should be quite crispy. The key is to make sure the pizza pan is thoroughly preheated along with your oven.

Then, get ready for a custom pizza party in your mouth! The beauty of using flour tortillas as your pizza crust is that you can vary the size to how big of a pizza you want. Do you want to make a large pizza for two to share? Use the extra-large 12 inch (30.5cm) flour tortillas. Do you have a ravenous appetite and don't feel like sharing your pizza creation? Use the large 10 inch (25.4cm) flour tortillas. Do you desire a more slimmed down version, or can't eat as much? Use the 8 inch (20.3cm) flour tortillas.

The added benefit is that everyone gets the pizza they want and like. And, these pizzas are fast and easy to make. The longest part of the entire process is preheating the oven and pizza pan.

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This month's cover celebrates the first hot air balloon flight by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783, on June 4.

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Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity, prosperity ... and good pizza!

Digitizing Your COVID-19 Vax Card

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

Now that a little more than 40 percent of the adults in the U.S. are considered to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (persons who receive both of the mRNA Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, along with persons who receive the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine), many of those vaccinated are wondering how to "protect" their vaccination card. These cards, given out with the first vaccination, enable vaccinated people to keep track of their vaccination(s), and to offer proof down the road that the person has received their COVID-19 vaccination.

But, they are fragile. They are nothing more than printed cardstock that the end consumer is expected to carry in their wallet. Over time, it just isn't going to endure years and years of wear and tear. Many are opting to laminate their vaccination cards, which will certainly make it much more durable. But, what if you could digitize your vaccination card? A digital copy should be able to endure for eternity.

Fortunately, there are a couple of popular options emerging that do just that. Let's cover some ways you might use to digitize your vaccination card. The two methods I'll present are just two options that I've tried. You might think of others that might better fit your needs. Also, since I don't have an iPhone (I've never owned an "i" anything), I'm not able to try out methods on that platform ... but I can provide a link to others who have tried it out, later on in the article.

The easiest methods involve using your smartphone, and those are the methods I highlight below. I'm certain, however, that anyone can take a picture of their vaccination card, import that image into GIMP, crop it, import it into LibreOffice Writer, and export it as a PDF from there. Most of those steps, though, are unnecessary with the smartphone methods I highlight below.

Google Photos Photoscan

My personal vaccination card digitized with Photoscan (but altered for data protection)

Google Photoscan is available for both Android and iOS systems, so this one should pretty much have universal appeal. After installing Photoscan, launch the app. Frame your vaccination card in the screen, press the on-screen button to activate the camera, and then "scan" the card by following the on-screen prompts to move the camera to each of the indicated four corners of the document or image. When the "scan" is finished, the image will automatically be cropped to the edges of the document or image.

Then, go look for your scanned image in Google Photos. Select the image, and then select to "Print" the image. You'll be asked to "choose a printer," and if you choose your printer as a PDF file, a PDF file containing the document image will be saved to your phone's "Downloads" folder. Using your phone's file browser, you can pull up the file and send/email the PDF file to your chosen recipient (or even yourself). On my Pixel 5 phone, I can choose to move the PDF file to what's called the "Safe folder." Access to the "Safe folder" is limited to only those who know how to get into it.

To increase the speed with which you can access your digitized vaccination card, you can add the photo from Photoscan to your "Favorites" in Google Photos. If you view the image in Google Photos (at least on my Pixel 5's version of Google Photos), just select the "star" in the upper right corner of the image screen. The image will automatically be added to your Google Photos "Favorites" category. Then, whenever you need to show your proof of vaccination, it'll be much easier to simply show the image of your vaccination card. It's not as secure as adding it to your "Safe folder," but it definitely is a lot faster to access when needed.

Adobe Scan

Adobe Scan on my Pixel 5

My personal vaccination card digitized with Adobe Scan (but altered for data protection)

Just like Google Photoscan, Adobe Scan is available in both the Google Play store and the Apple iOS App store. Thus, this description should apply equally to either platform.

At first, you might think that Adobe Scan works like Google Photoscan, and there are some similarities. However, there are significant differences. Those differences make Adobe Scan a LOT easier and faster to use, believe it or not.

When you first launch Adobe Scan, you will need to register an account with Adobe. It only takes a few seconds to do. If you already have an Adobe account, you will be given an opportunity to log into that account. Once logged in, you're ready to go. To scan your vaccination card, select "Document" as the scan type in Adobe Scan.

The first significant difference is that Adobe Scan will automatically snap the image for you, and automatically crop it to the document edges, all without having to scan to the four corners of the document or image. To be perfectly honest, I was slightly taken back by that behavior. I wasn't expecting that to happen.

The second significant difference is that after making any necessary edits to the scan, press the button at the top right of the screen, and Adobe Scan will automatically save your scan as a PDF file. That PDF file is automatically uploaded to your Adobe Document Cloud account. Because it's stored in the "cloud," be sure that your password for your Adobe account is unique and secure. The screenshot from my phone above is similar to what you will see after you scan and save your document. From there, you can "Share" your document (I chose to send it to my personal email account).

You can also save a copy as a JPG image, a copy of which is now stored in my Google Photos "Favorites" category. Selecting the "More..." option will provide many more options, like storing a copy in Google Docs/Drive, printing a copy of the scanned document, modifying the scan, renaming the scan, moving the scan, deleting the scan, and a few other options.

iOS Option

As I mentioned at the outset, I don't have an "i" anything. However, according to an article on TechRepublic, iOS users can use Apple Notes to create a digital copy of their COVID-19 vaccination card.

Of course, if you're an iOS user, there's nothing preventing you from using any of the other two options I mentioned above. But then, it's nice to know that iOS users can digitize their vaccine card without downloading any additional apps, just by using Apple Notes ... which is already installed on your phone.

Android users might want to take a look at Google Keep, Google's very weak "answer" to Apple Notes. It would be like comparing a first-time sandlot baseball hitter (Google Keep) to a major league hitter (Apple Notes). Keep allows you to take pictures to store on your Keep notecards, but that is where the similarity ends. Apple Notes has a lot more spit and polish, and a LOT more useful features.

Security

By all means, keep security at the forefront of your mind when creating the digital copy of your vaccine card. This is sensitive, private, personal information, and should be viewable by only those who have a need to know.

Whatever you do, DO NOT share the unaltered digital image copy of your vaccination card online, social media or not. There are anti-vaxxers and vaccine-hesitant individuals downloading these images, then using high quality graphics software (such as GIMP or Photoshop) to create false vaccination "records" for themselves or their cronies.

Notice that I have taken multiple steps to protect the integrity of my vaccination card. It's probably not foolproof, but I have attempted to make it such a daunting task that the "offender" will most likely move on to an easier target, rather than spend the lengthy amount of time required to clean up the copies that I have shared.

You may also want to think about password protecting your PDF files. Fortunately, this is relatively easy on PCLinuxOS. And, there are two tools available to add a password to your PDF file.

The first tool is pdftk, which you can install from the PCLinuxOS repository. You will need to start a terminal session, then change to the directory where you have your PDF file stored. Once there, enter the command line similar to the one below, replacing the obvious filenames and passwords with appropriate replacements.

pdftk input.pdf output output.pdf owner_pw xyz user_pw abc encrypt_128bit

The last parameter, encrypt_128bit, changes from using the weak 40 bit encryption (the default) to the much more secure 128 bit encryption.

The other tool is qpdf, which can also be installed from the PCLinuxOS repository. Start a terminal session, and then change to the directory where you have your PDF file stored. Once there, enter the command line similar to the one below, replacing the obvious filenames and passwords with appropriate replacements.

qpdf --encrypt [readpass] [ownerpass] 256 -- [infile].pdf [outfile].pdf

Summary

At least in the U.S., COVID-19 Vaccination Cards are going to be a "fact of life" for the foreseeable future. Since I live in the U.S., that is my frame of reference, and I'm not sure what other governments across the globe are doing.

There are benefits, at least here, of having proof of vaccination handy and available. The CDC recently relaxed mask and social distancing requirements for fully vaccinated individuals. While masks and social distancing will still be required in certain circumstances, it is still a HUGE step towards things getting back to "normal," with "normal" being how things were before the pandemic.

Like most across the globe, I'm way beyond ready for the return of some form of normalcy.

Inkscape Tutorial: Creating A Rainbow

by Meemaw

I saw this the other day and thought I'd share. Sometimes you need a rainbow. There are actually two ways to do this.

One way to do it is to create a rainbow color gradient and fill a semicircle with it. Using the Spirals tool, draw a semicircle. When you choose your spiral tool, set the Turns to 0.50, the Divergence to 0.000, and leave the inner radius at 0. It will look like this:

If it doesn't, you can go to Path > Object to Path, and click the Nodes tool, and push the nodes around until you get something closer. I also changed my stroke to a light red because I'm going to start my rainbow with red.

Now, choose radial gradient for fill. You should click on the gradient tool as well to get the L-shaped indicator you get with a radial gradient. Double click on the L-shape to insert and edit several stops, choosing your desired rainbow colors at each stop. The bottom of your L-shape should be at the bottom of your semicircle. Before you finish, make your last gradient color white, and move your stops until your drawing looks like the rainbow you want.

With a little further stop-moving, I think I have the one I want. You can change the opacity to make it a little fuzzier if you wish.

Method number 2 uses the Tiled Clones tool. This tool is one of the most powerful tools in Inkscape.

Again, select the Spirals tool and draw a semicircle.

The settings should stay at Turns: 0.50, Divergence: 0.00, Inner radius: 0.00.

Make the semicircle 200 px wide and 100 px high, and in the Fill & Stroke window, change the stroke width to 3.5 px.

Now change the stroke color to ? in the stroke paint tab. We need to do this so we can change the colors of the clones. Since the paint is undefined for the object, the semicircle will be invisible. I circled the ? to press, but I haven't pressed it yet.

Keeping the arc selected, go to Edit > Clone > Create tiled clones. You should use following settings:

Symmetry: P1 simple translation.
                   7 rows and 1 column

Shift: for X all the values are zero. for Y the per row field should be -98.5
               Exponents should stay at 1.000

Scale: scale X per row is -1.6
            scale Y per row is -0.7
            all others are zero (Exponents at 1.000).

Color: Initial color be red, for per row field, change the H value to 13.5.
            The rest should all be 0.

Leave all other tabs alone. Press create, and you should see a rainbow.

Blur it a bit, and set the opacity down to your liking.

Experimenting with the tiled clone settings may give you completely different designs. Remember! Your tiled clones are separate from each other, so you'll have to choose all and group them if you want to resize or move them together.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner:

Breakfast Sausage Pies

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound ground pork breakfast sausage
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/2 tsp diced garlic
2 medium sized eggs
1+ cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 can Pillsbury Crescent Rolls™

DIRECTIONS:

In a skillet, cook sausage and onion over medium-high heat for 5 to 7 minutes , stirring frequently, until sausage is no longer pink, drain. Cool for about 10 minutes. Stir in garlic, eggs, and cheese. Reserve enough cheese to sprinkle on top of pies.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Unroll crescent rolls. Pinch perforated seems together. Cut dough into eight equal squares. Place each square into a greased muffin tin, and form to fit. Once all eight squares have been put in the muffin tin, spoon one tablespoon of the sausage, onion, egg and cheese mixture into each cup. Sprinkle a bit of the shredded cheese on top of each sausage pie.

Bake for about 8-12 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 5 minutes. Remove from the muffin tin using a fork or knife. Place on a serving plate and serve while still warm.

Serve with sour cream or salsa.

OPTIONS:

replace sausage with Hamburger, Chicken or Turkey

NUTRITION:

Calories: 299           Carbs: 24g           Fiber: 0g           Sodium: 773mg

Short Topix: Internet Explorer Officially DIES June 15, 2022 ... Sorta

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

U.S. Appeals Court: Snapchat Can Be Sued Over Role In Fatal Car Crash

According to a U.S. federal appeals court, Snapchat can be sued for its role in a car crash that left three Wisconsin teenagers dead, according to an article from NPR (National Public Radio).

In May 2017, these three teen boys were set on driving down a cornfield-lined country road at a high rate of speed, and planned to share it all on social media. Snapchat has a controversial feature, called "Speed Filter," which captures and documents real-life speed. The faster the speed, the more attention they hoped to garner from followers on Snapchat.

Activating Snapchat and the "speed filter" are the last things they did, right before the car left the road, running into a tree at 123 mph (198 kmh), and killing all three of them.

The boy's parents feel that Snapchat is partially to blame for their untimely deaths. They claim that Snapchat created an unsafe game with the speed filter, which encouraged users to attempt unsafe "feats" for the sake of being noticed on the social media platform.

The initial U.S. district court dismissed the case against Snapchat, citing immunity under the controversial Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law provides tech companies a bush to hide behind, protecting them from libel and other civil suits for what people post on sites, regardless of how harmful it may be.

However, the three-judge U.S. appeals court (9th Circuit) says that Section 230 does not apply because the case is not about what someone posted to Snapchat. Instead, the case is/was about the design of the app itself. "Snap indisputably designed Snapchat's reward system and Speed Filter and made those aspects of Snapchat available to users through the Internet," Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the court (PDF file). "This type of claim rests on the premise that manufacturers have a 'duty to exercise due care in supplying products that do not present unreasonable risk of injury or harm to the public.'" Wardlow went on to explain that CDA immunity under Section 230 is "unavailable in this case."

This case, which has been remanded back to the lower courts, may have ramifications for how broadly or narrowly the courts interpret the controversial Section 230 portion of the Communications Decency Act. This case could open up an end-run around Section 230 immunity, especially when it comes to bad or faulty product design.

Google To Automatically Enroll Users Into 2FA

After security experts have banged the drum on two-factor authentication (2FA) for the past 700,000,000 years, Google is automatically turning 2FA on for its users ... provided that you have provided either a secondary email or a phone number.

There is no question that 2FA is infinitely more secure. There is no question that using complex, unique passwords is much more secure (despite user insistence year after year after year on using weak passwords, such as 123456).

Google used World Password Day on May 6 to announce on their blog that 2FA would soon become the default for Google users who have provided either a secondary email address or a phone number. The searches for "how secure is my password" tripled in 2020, as many across the globe were forced to telecompute (also known as "work from home," or WFH) during the pandemic.

Still password reuse between sites, as well as using less-complicated passwords, puts your data at risk. If one site gets hacked, then all of the other sites that use the same password are also vulnerable. If a password isn't complicated enough, it makes it easier for hackers to obtain or hack your passwords. We've covered password security here in the pages of The PCLinuxOS Magazine more times than we can count.

As part of their blog post on World Password Day, they (Google) mentioned that they are looking forward to the day that passwords are obsolete and are no longer needed. Without a doubt, passwords are the chink in the security armor. Your data is only as strong as the weakest part of your armor.

Hallelujah! Internet Explorer Officially DIES June 15, 2022 ... Sorta

As of June 15, 2022, Internet Explorer 11 will be officially retired from most versions of Windows 10, according to "The Windows Experience" blog post on May 19, 2021. Microsoft has spent much of the past couple of years just wishing that Internet Explorer would just go away. They even replaced it with Microsoft Edge, and then reworked Edge to use Chromium as the basis for its web browser.

Internet Explorer, despite all of its awfulness and non-adherence to established web standards (for a while, Microsoft thought its britches were big enough to entitle it to SET the standards, rather than follow the standards that EVERYONE ELSE had already agreed upon), had to be one of the absolute worst web browsers around. Yes, it did have a few shining moments, but mostly, it was just awful.

Internet Explorer was first released in August 1995, based on the Spyglass Mosaic web browser. Since Mosaic was produced by NCSA, a public entity, a much heavier reliance was placed on its commercial licensing partner, Spyglass. Initially, Spyglass delivered two versions of Internet Explorer. The first one was based entirely on NCSA source code, and the other was made from scratch by Spyglass, but conceptually modelled after the NCSA browser. Much to everyone's chagrin, Microsoft chose the Spyglass code model, rather than the NCSA code model.

The latest version of Internet Explorer is 11, and was released in 2013. Yes, nearly 8 years ago! It's the browser that refuses to die. The main reason is to support all the legacy websites and applications that vitally depend on IE to run. To facilitate the end of IE, Microsoft Edge has a built-in Internet Explorer mode (IE mode) for the times that those legacy IE websites and applications need to be accessed.

You might have noticed that the headline says that IE "dies" on June 15, 2022 ... sorta. Well here's the "sorta" part, spelled out in a "Note" after the first paragraph of the announcement on the Microsoft blog:

"This retirement does not affect in-market Windows 10 LTSC or Server Internet Explorer 11 desktop applications. It also does not affect the MSHTML (Trident) engine. For a full list of what is in scope for this announcement, and for other technical questions, please see our FAQ."

So, we may not be "officially" done with IE just yet. But, come June 15, 2022, there might just be a LOT fewer users of it than before. We can only hope. After all, hope springs eternal.

Motorola Preparing World's First Phone With Over-The-Air Charging

One thing is for certain: Motorola does not shy away from innovation, even after being purchased by Lenovo. Last November, Motorola reinvented its hugely successful Razr line of flip phones. Now, they sport a flexible screen, with a secondary screen on the outside of the closed phone.

Not resting on their laurels, Motorola has partnered with GuRu to bring wireless charging to its line of cellphones in a move that was widely reported in the computer press, as well as announced in a press release.

Imagine being able to walk into a room and your phone immediately starts to charge. Currently, the charging ability is able to take place within 30 feet (9.14m) of the charging transmitter. The charging will be slow at first, typically limited to 5W or 10W charging. That's pretty slow, considering that some "fast chargers" can deliver up to 65W charging power. The goal will be, obviously, to increase that wattage over time.

It's unclear when we might see wireless charging come about, but some experts are "predicting" that we may see Motorola phones with the GuRu wireless charging chip within the next couple of years. Of course, there will most likely be all sorts of regulatory issues to overcome, as well.

Move Over Calibri: MS Replaces Default Office Font

In 2007, Calibri became the default font for Microsoft Office. Unless you changed it when you started typing your document, Calibri was there, front and center, just waiting for you to start typing.

Now, 14 years later, Microsoft is looking to replace the easy to read, easy-on-the-eyes font with one of five font candidates to become the new default Microsoft Office font. In an April 28, 2021 Microsoft 365 blog post, the five candidate fonts -- Tenorite, Bierstadt, Skeena, Seaford, and Grandview -- were introduced to the public, and public input was invited via social media.

Calibri's creator, Lucas de Groot, a Dutch type designer, is a bit surprised that Calibri is being replaced already. He originally started work on Calibri in 2002 for an unspecified client, which turned out to be Microsoft. CNBC ran a nice retrospective article on de Groot, capturing his surprise at the change away from Calibri.

No one seems to have captured the fonts in the wild. Either that, or no one is sharing. The fonts are available if you are a Microsoft 365 user, and then you just select the fonts in a Word document, and the fonts are downloaded to your computer for use in all Office 365 programs.

Game Zone: Mother Russia Bleeds - Better Than SOR 4?

by Alessandro Ebersol (Agent Smith)

Well, as I wrote in my review of Streets of Rage 4, the game was a disappointment. But, it is a very difficult game to criticize, as it is very well done. How is anyone going to speak ill of SOR 4? Okay, we're not going to bash SOR 4 in the reviews, but let's say it should have been better. However, there is a game, which was released before SOR 4, but which captured the spirit of SOR and delivered much more than SOR 4.

What game is this? Mother Russia Bleeds

Mother Russia Bleeds is a beat 'em up video game, developed by the independent development studio Le Cartel Studio, based in France, and published by Devolver Digital. The game was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux on September 5, 2016, PlayStation 4 on December 3, 2016 and for Nintendo Switch on November 15, 2018.

What is Mother Russia Bleeds?

Mother Russia Bleeds has "beat 'em up" style gameplay, often compared to Streets of Rage and Double Dragon.

Renegade, the grandfather of MRB

However, one of its influences is the old game Renegade, which came out by the same company Technos Japan, but before Double Dragon.

Players are set up to fight through different levels of side-scrolling stages, using weapons, melee weapons or their bare hands to defeat enemies. When killed, some enemies start to have convulsions. Players can fill their syringes with the drug from the corpses of these enemies, which can then be injected to recharge health or enter frantic mode, which adds strength and speed to the player. The game can be played in single-player or local multiplayer co-op for up to four

Plot

Mother Russia Bleeds takes place in an alternative Soviet Union of the 1980s, ruled by the Russian mafia. Four Ruska Romani working for a man named Mikhail earn money by fighting on the streets, in the slums. In the midst of a struggle, government forces invade the operation and kidnap the four ''gypsies''.

The group wakes up a month later in an underground laboratory built under a government prison, where they were turned into guinea pigs for the preparation of an addictive drug called Nekro. They escape from their cell and escape from the laboratory, killing all the scientists and security guards on their way, while suffering increasingly intense hallucinations due to the Nekro drug, on whom they also depend to fight the injuries and obtain a monstrous force.

The Development

Mother Russia Bleeds was heavily inspired by Streets of Rage, Double Dragon and Renegade. Game development started in September 2013, after former Ubisoft Paris game designer Frédéric Coispeau quit his job and met web designer Alexandre Muttoni, with whom he formed Le Cartel Studio on August 20, 2013. Le Cartel Studio soon began to work on the story and some artwork for the game. In October 2013, the team welcomed its new programmer, Florian Reneau, where the new composer, Vincent "Fixions" Cassar, soon followed.

After a few productive months, Le Cartel Studio opened the Mother Russia Bleeds website, with the official announcement of its project, on March 1, 2014. At the end of that month, Le Cartel Studio uploaded a pre-alpha teaser of gameplay for Mother Russia Bleeds on March 30, 2014. The demo level of the game featured scenes from the "Night Club" level, which was heavily inspired by Hotline Miami, which led to a wide spread of the teaser. A week later, Le Cartel Studio announced that the game would be released in the first quarter of 2015 for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux, and if it sold well, also for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, as well as Xbox 360 and Xbox One, scheduled to go through a crowdfunding campaign, which was later canceled.

On June 18, 2014, Le Cartel Studio decided to let fans of its game's VK (Vkontakt, kind of Russian Facebook) page decide the names of the characters, which resulted in "Sergei", "Ivan", "Natasha" and "Boris". The pre-alpha teaser for Mother Russia Bleeds was later noticed by Dennaton Games folks Jonatan Söderström and Dennis Wedin, the creators of Hotline Miami, who at the level shown in the teaser was inspired by Hotline Miami. Söderström and Wedin recommended the game to Devolver Digital, resulting in a partnership between the two companies a few months later.

At Sony's E3 2015 conference, Mother Russia Bleeds was officially announced at its new publisher, Devolver Digital, and was announced for PlayStation 4. The first trailer for the game followed shortly after Sony's press conference, which, in addition to PlayStation 4, also confirmed the game for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux. As announced on August 10, 2016, Mother Russia Bleeds was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux on September 5, 2016. The standard version, and the Dealer Edition of the game, which includes a second copy of the game, was released , the original soundtrack by Vincent "Fixions" Cassar, and the mini-documentary Behind the Schemes. On the same day, a port for PlayStation 4 was announced, the final version of which would be released on December 3, 2016.

The game was created on the Unity (2D) engine, which allowed the game to be released on many platforms.

Review: Mother Russia Bleeds

Now, I will do my analysis of the game. The version I'm going to review is the one sold on Steam.

Overview

After disappointing myself with SOR 4, I wondered if the Beat Em Up genre had run out, since SOR 4, as a continuation of the franchise, was very weak. Something like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a fourth sequel far short of what the franchise once was. However, Mother Russia Bleeds was a pleasant surprise. MRB was what SOR 4 should have been: visceral, hardcore and really, really fun. Now, let's go to the game analysis.

Graphics

The graphics are fantastic, mixing the retro pixelated look with very modern visual effects: There is motion blur when the characters attack, in a very realistic way, despite the retro look.

Other than that, there are many visual details that add to the experience, such as characters that bleed, and as they take damage and their faces change, with black eyes, bleeding mouths and missing teeth. Very interesting graphics decisions that the developers made.

Audio

There's not much to comment on in-game audio, it's fantastic! It seems that the composer left some club of the 80's, where they played the English underground. Yes, the sound evokes a New Order, from the beginning of its career, but much more sinister and heavy. Very good work by the composer Vincent Cassar.

Gameplay

The game has everything to be the future of the Beat Em Up genre: It is fast, cruel, violent and dark.

There is not enough praise for this masterpiece. With up to 4 players, it recognizes joypads without any problem, it has several pre-configured languages, both for the dialogs in the game and for the interface. The game features arcade campaign, survival and boss rush modes. It also allows you to adjust the graphic mode to CRT, where it mimics the oval shape of an old tube screen, with the famous scanlines.

Also, this game gets it right where the famous SOR 4 got it wrong: the characters have the dash, the run, which gives another dynamic to the game, both in attack and defense. The game requires an Nvidia or AMD accelerator card. It does not work with Intel onboard video.

Verdict:

Buy. Buy when you can, you will not regret. The game is very worthwhile.
URL: https://store.steampowered.com/app/361300/Mother_Russia_Bleeds/

And here, a video review of the game, running on PCLinuxOS.

Good Words, Good Deeds, Good News

Compiled by Meemaw

Clover Saved Haley

Haley was walking her dog, Clover, when she suddenly had a seizure and collapsed at the edge of the street. Clover watched one car go by, then pulled out of her leash and stood in the street in front of the next car that came. The driver, Dryden, went to see what the problem was while Clover stood near him. After she had stopped a second vehicle, she went for more help, apparently running home. When Clover and Haley's father got back to her, 911 had been called and she was in an ambulance, where she woke up. She has no idea what caused the seizure, but she was very grateful that Clover was there.

Couple Adopts 7

Pam Willis saw a Facebook post in 2019 about a family with seven children whose parents had been killed in a car accident. She says she felt at the time like she should give them a home. Discussing it with her husband, Gary, and having experience with being foster parents, they decided that they should adopt all the kids. They already had five grown children, but that didn't deter them.

A few months later, they met all seven children, who ranged in age from 15 down to 4. They had already had some struggles, from their parents' battle with addiction, to homelessness and all had been in the hospital after being in the vehicle accident that killed their parents.

Pam and Gary adopted them in August, 2020, and they now live in California.

Teen Saves Toddler From Drowning

Kaydence was on vacation in Florida with her parents, enjoying the pool, when she saw a small body floating in the deep end.

"I was scared and nervous and afraid, but my instincts kicked in," Henslee told KRQE News. "I just saw her kind of floating. She wasn't technically on the bottom when I was there."

Three year-old Haven was pulled from the pool and a bystander helped Kaydence perform CPR. Haven's mother had exited the pool area for a moment and was shocked to find out it was her daughter who was in the pool. The child is expected to make a full recovery.

Teen Saves Child From Overturned Car

Yury and his three children were on their way home when they came upon a group of people standing by the road. As they approached they saw that a car had gone into the roadside canal and overturned, and that there was a person still in the car. Several people at the roadside were panicking and not sure what to do.

Yury and his 14-year-old son, Samuel, rushed to the overturned car. Yury pulled the door open and Samuel pulled the boy out.

It isn't known why the car was in the canal.

Homeless Veteran Saves Man From Burning Car

Homeless Army veteran Freddie was walking with his girlfriend when they saw a car crash on a highway overpass. As they got closer, the car started burning. Freddie ran to the car and pulled the driver out. Eric Lopez, the driver, told him to stop because the dashboard was on fire and he'd get burned, but Freddie and another passerby pried his hands off the steering wheel and pulled him out.

Eric's grandmother was tremendously grateful. "You're truly God's angel," she said. "I praise God that you were here because you saved my grandson, and that means everything to me."

Frat Brothers Pay Off Former House Cook's Mortgage

Phi Gamma Delta alumni realized their former cook, Jessie Hamilton, was working two jobs to pay off her home mortgage and decided to do something to help.

Jessie had worked for the fraternity from 1982 to 1996, and in that time had gotten to know a great many boys. A single mother of 3, she would begin her day at 4:00 a.m. to make it to campus and cook all the boys' meals. Besides that, she listened to them when they wanted to talk and helped them make it to doctor's appointments. They loved her and her cooking, and many had kept in touch, including Andrew Fusaiotti, now 52. When he checked on her during the pandemic, he discovered she was still, at age 73, working two jobs.

Speaking with her children, he found out she had 16 years to go on a 30-year mortgage and needed to pay off the $45,000 balance.

"Soon, Fusaiotti got his fraternity brothers on board and got 91 of them to donate an average of $560. The fraternity brothers surprised her with $51,765 in time for her 74th birthday in an April 3 celebration they called 'Jesse Hamilton Day,' the Advocate reported."

"They were my kids. They still are," Hamilton told the Washington Post. "They used to tell me they loved me, and now, they've proved it."

Windows 10: An OS With A Privacy Guide 1,243 Pages Long

by The Cat

Now that the European Union's General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) has pushed the big tech to state what they are collecting from their users, I decided to give a look on the privacy policy of MS Windows 10 -- the most widely used desktop/laptop operating system in the world -- and try to find out what is the bare minimum of data that Microsoft is collecting from a user.

Navigating through the jungle of the several and different Microsoft's privacy policies and webpages is not an easy task. Their "Privacy Statement" is 140 pages in length, and if you really want to delve into the details, they have a "Windows 10 & Privacy Compliance: A Guide for IT and Compliance Professionals" with nothing less than 1,243 pages containing six different privacy policies to the several versions of Windows 10!

No fisherman's tale: this guide has 1,243 pages!

I focused my research on the most recent versions of Windows 10 (21H1, 20H2 and 2004), picking up "only" their Privacy Statement (140 pages) and the "required Windows diagnostic events and fields" with another 166 pages, which, according to their website, would take five hours and forty minutes to read! Let's get started!

An almost six-hour read! Got some coffee?

According to their Statement, they will collect:

Activity history

That's what I call starting in great style! They will keep track of almost everything you do on your device: "the apps and services you use, the files you open, and the websites you browse." So, Windows 10 stores every single file you open and all sites you visit. Ah, and it's not only Windows. If you use Edge, Word, Excel, etc., they will also call headquarters and inform them about what you are doing. It is stored locally, but if you have an MS account and was a little distracted, just clicking "I agree" to all the boring stuff appearing on your screen, it is very likely that you authorized that all your activity history was sent to Microsoft! And once doing so, your activity is entirely in the cloud, being used by Microsoft to "enable cross-device experiences" (nice wording, no?), and to provide things like anticipating your needs. Do you remember the gypsy at the sidewalk trying to see your future? Microsoft can do it better!

Advertising ID

Not being enough that many web browsers and sites do that, Windows generates a unique advertising ID for each user on a device to help out those fellows. Thus, "app developers [...] can associate personal data they collect about you with your advertising ID". They say this can be disabled.

Diagnostic data

This is certainly the "big one", so much that it has a special, 166 page-length document dedicated to describe what it gathers. Microsoft is so nice that it has even left you the choice between optional and required diagnostic data, which lead, us to conclude that there is a mandatory data collection, and it is not few. It amounts to 450 "events". They will collect information like:

downloads: tracking of all ongoing downloads and its current state;

connected peripherals;

applications installed;

batteries: type and capacity data, as well as the number of connected standby devices in use;

the processor type, OEM manufacturer, firmware, ROM and RAM memory
attributes;

IP address, mobile network (including IMEI and mobile operator), and whether the device is connected to a free or paid network;

displays;

temperature.

Anyway, MS has a software that allows you to visualize what data they are receiving from you. It's named Diagnostic Data Viewer and you can download it (yes, it doesn't come preinstalled on your PC).

Location

"Data about a Windows device's recent location history is also stored on the device even if not using a Microsoft account, and certain apps and Windows features can access this location history." They say you can clear your location history on your device, but not stop it from being collected.

Speech recognition

If permission is given in Cortana, they will collect, among other things, your name and nickname, recent calendar events and the names of the people in your appointments -- that is, not only family birthdays, social/work/religious gatherings, but also your relatives, friends and co-workers' names. Enough? No! They also will pick up information about the names of your favorite places, the apps you use, and your music preferences! And this even if your device is locked: "... if enabled, the relevant app will continue listening to the microphone for voice keywords when you have locked your device and can activate for anyone who speaks near the device. When the device is locked, the app will have access to the same set of capabilities and information as when the device is unlocked."

Microsoft's New Mantra

As most privacy regulations require a justification for data gathering, the tech giant from Seattle solved it with an abracadabra: how to explain each one of the 450 diagnostic events, the microphones turned on, the geolocation and all your activity history -- including all your downloads -- being sent to their servers? "Let's just pronounce this incantation: The data collected with this event is used to help keep Windows up to date. Fantastic! Problem solved! Now we're compliant, and no one will dare to sue us!" You will find this mantra 78 times only in the diagnostic data section. I wonder if they display this phrase in a poster at their cafeteria.

This is the phrase that the lawyers from Microsoft believe will have a hypnotic effect over courts throughout the world

Final Thoughts

This is what the latest versions of Windows 10 collect from a user. It doesn't include any MS app nor older versions, whose privacy policies are even lengthier. This is certainly not a surprise for many. But for how long will Microsoft be able to stay in business with so much data collected under such dubious arguments, in a scenario of increasingly strict privacy laws? Will they just sit and wait until people -- and governments -- start to take legal action against them? Whether those guys are taking a huge risk or whether they are planning something else -- like jumping off the Windows boat and embarking on the "Microsoft Linux" idea, as people speculated some months ago. While others said it was unlikely to see a Windows system running on a Linux kernel, as Linux is certainly much more privacy-respectful, at least from the legal point this would relieve their actual burden. But, as a Linux user, I would rather prefer to see Windows far, far away from us, before distributions, in exchange for generous donations or lucrative partnerships, start to push users towards MS products and... but wait! Red Hat and Canonical are already MS partners! And SUSE and the Linux Foundation, too! Fortunately, we are for now protected here on PCLinuxOS, but I believe that in the coming years the battle for autonomy inside the Linux community will be tough. May the force be with us!

nnn: The Terminal Based File Manager You Never Knew You Needed

by Paul Arnote (parnote)

A LONG TIME AGO, IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY ...

Just like most people around these parts, I was a DOS and Windows user. It was a time before I even heard of Linux, much less tried it. Early Windows users -- I'm talking about Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 -- spent an equal amount of time in DOS as they did in Windows. Back then, Windows ran on top of DOS, so knowledge of the DOS command prompt was pretty much a requirement.

One program that I **always** installed on my DOS systems was Vernon D. Buerg's excellent LIST program. It was a simple file manager for the DOS command prompt that mostly did one thing, and did it well: it listed files in the selected directory. It also allowed users to view the contents of the selected file. Simply highlight the file and press the "Enter" key. The contents of that selected file -- whether it was a simple *.txt file or a binary file -- was opened in a simple viewer. The user could view the contents of the selected file. When a user was finished viewing the contents of a file, hitting the "Escape" key brought the user back to the listing of files. List was small, efficient, and pretty much stayed "out of the way," allowing users to navigate and work quickly.

Vernon D. Buerg's List.com program running in DOS

This was useful, especially at a time when common file formats (like for games) were given obscure file extensions to "hide" their true nature. For example, MOD files used as sound or music files in games were often changed to have a file extension of MUS or MSC. Highlighting and taking a peek inside those files with the file viewer in List would reveal the true nature of the "file with the funky extension." Then, users could just copy the file and change the file extension to the more standard file extension, enabling playback with MOD file players of the day.

List also allowed users to perform basic file "housekeeping" duties, such as moving or copying files. The program had attracted a very loyal and faithful following of devout users over the years.

Buerg, who lived in the San Francisco area, died in 2009 at the age of 62. His List program was one of the early "shareware" success stories. Created for DOS, List was a 16-bit program. Before his death, users inquired about him updating List to 32-bit and 64-bit. However, Buerg stated that he had no interest in updating it, and he never did. Faithful users wanted to be able to use it on later versions of Windows at the command prompt, and the 16-bit version no longer ran on the later versions of Windows.

So, with Buerg declining to make a 32-bit or 64-bit version of List, Clark Woodworth of Weston, MA set out to create a List-type program that had the same/similar features, and that was 32-bit and 64-bit. He calls his version ZBLIST. Woodworth's program is an EXE, while List is a COM. Otherwise, they do appear to be rather similar. Woodworth has even created some short documentation for his new version.

Woodworth's ZBLIST.EXE running

So, you're probably thinking "enough with all the background material." I mention it because it is important and germain to the rest of our discussion. For as good as List is, there is NOTHING in any other OS that perfectly duplicates List, or that has all of List's features. Mysteriously, nothing in Linux, MacOS, Windows or any other OS has ever duplicated List's capabilities and features. Nothing.

On Linux, the closest we can come is an obscure file tool with the very strange name of "nnn". Fortunately, nnn is in the PCLinuxOS repository, so installation is straightforward and just as you would install anything else on your computer.

Once installed on your computer, entering nnn -h at a command line prompt in a terminal session will list all of the command line options. Entering just nnn at the command line prompt will launch nnn in the current working directory. If you want nnn to open to a specific directory, cd to the directory you want to view first. Alternatively, type nnn, followed by any options you want/need to invoke, and then the path to the directory you want to start in.

Here are the command line startup options for nnn:

https://github.com/jarun/nnn

Of course, that last line in the list of command line startup options for nnn is the "home" of nnn.

Navigation in nnn is pretty straight forward. You move about the screen by using the arrow cursor keys, or the Page Up/Page Down keys. To change the directory you're viewing, highlight the directory you want to view, and hit the "Enter" key or the right cursor key. Similarly, if you highlight a file and hit the "Enter" key or the right cursor key, the file will be opened in the default application associated with that file. For example, plain text files on my computer (running Xfce) are associated with Mousepad, so all plain text files automatically open in Mousepad on my computer. Similarly, GPicView is my default image viewer, so all pictures open with it. Videos open with VLC.

To select files, highlight them and press the spacebar. A "+" sign will appear next to selected files. Then, you can move the files by using Ctrl + V, copy the files by using Ctrl + P, or delete the selected files by using Shift + X. If you want to create an archive file out of the selected files, press the "f" key (lower case). It will ask you if you want to create an archive out of the current file, or the selection of files. Choose "s" for the selection of files, and then enter the name of the archive you want to create, complete with the archive file extension to determine the type of archive.

To toggle seeing all hidden files, press the "." key. To toggle between a simple list view and a detailed view of the files, press the "d" key. To batch rename files, press the "r" key (lower case) and follow the prompts.

You can get some navigation assistance at any time by pressing the "?" key. When you do, the information below will be displayed:

As always, you can quit nnn simply by pressing the "q" key. You can also view the nnn man page here.

Interestingly, nnn also supports plugins that allow various file types to be displayed right in the terminal window. There are 60 plugins on the nnn github site. You can also create your own plugins using any scripting language you desire. You can download the plugins from the nnn github site, but be sure to put them in your ~/.config/nnn/plugins directory.

Summary

nnn is fast, efficient, and quite small. It does a good job of not getting into its own way, allowing the end user to quickly dispatch file duties. Yes, it is a bit awkward at first, but with repeated use, the tasks become easier and easier, until they are second nature.

Just as using List under DOS made my life with DOS and all of its shortcomings better, nnn has the potential to make my life at the Linux command prompt easier. If you give it a chance, I bet you just might agree.

PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Bonus:

Chicken Milanese With Fresh Tomato Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

6 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
2 cups grape tomatoes cut lengthwise in half
1 large shallot, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup dry red wine
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup Italian-style panko crispy bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (1 1/2 lb)
Cooking spray

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat 2 teaspoons of the oil over medium-high heat. Cook tomatoes, shallots, salt and pepper in oil for 4 minutes, stirring frequently, until shallots are tender. Stir in wine; cook 30 seconds longer. Remove from heat; transfer to medium bowl. Stir in basil; cover to keep warm.

2. In a shallow bowl, mix bread crumbs and cheese. In the same skillet, heat remaining 4 1/2 teaspoons oil over medium heat. Spray both sides of chicken with cooking spray; coat with bread crumb mixture. Cook chicken in oil for 12 to 15 minutes, turning once, until juice of chicken in oil for 12 to 15 minutes, turning once, until juice of chicken is clear when the center of thickest part is cut (at least 165F).

3. On each of 4 plates, place 1 chicken breast; spoon sauce evenly over chicken.

NUTRITION:

Calories: 813           Carbs: 42.2g           Fiber: 6.9g           Sodium: 873.5mg

PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

Sudoku

Download Puzzle Solutions Here!

Scrappler

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Crossword

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WordFind

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Mixed Up meme Scrambler

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Screenshot Showcase

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